We call this entry, and the two just below, ‘Loose Ends,’ because we’re taking a moment as the calendar changes to 2007 to update redbankgreen readers on a couple of stories from our first few months in business.

This one concerns roofer Joe Ruffini and the environmentally friendly ‘green’ roof he started building atop his Maple Avenue house earlier this year.

Well, it’s finished, with a flagstone deck, flower planters, a covered ‘fire pit’ table in the center, and irregularly shaped patches of sod in the four corners.

First, in late June, we featured the ladder in a tree in our ‘Where Have I Seen This?’ feature.

Then came the complaints from neighbors. Not funny, they said, in essence. In fact, downright dangerous. Not to mention ugly.

So a month later, we zeroed in on the house at 236 Broad Street to ask: Yeah, what’s with the rusty ladder stuck in the groin of the large, dead tree out front? And why has that ladder, and a taller one tied to the roof of the house, been there for more than a year?

Remember that attempt to flip a house on Madison Avenue we told you about in June?

Well, the house remains unsold 18 months after an investor bought it, at the top of the market, for $475,000 $450,000. Sara Swanson, the New York woman who oversaw its renovationand lived amid the disarray of constructionis moving on. And the investor who bankrolled the project has decided to keep the house for himself, we’re told.

Last week’s ‘Where,’ we figured, was an easy one. And, in fact, several readers wrote in to correctly identify the image: a fire hydrant wrapped in black plastic on River Road in Fair Haven, near the corner of Lincoln Avenue.

Congrats are in order, by the way, to Susan McLaughlin, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty, for being the first.

What we did not expect though, was this intriguing reply late yesterday from blogging Fair Haven Mayor-elect Michael Halfacre to our inquiry as to why the hydrant appears to be in mourning:

The wrapping is due to a lack of water pressure to those hydrants from the Red Bank water utility. Our FD chose to wrap them, as they are not up to snuff for fighting fires.

The lack of water pressure to the Fair Haven homes served by RB water is an ongoing problem. We are attempting to address it now. (You may read b/t the lines here.)

Larry Higgs of the Asbury Park Press has a story today about how new rules aimed at weeding out conflicts-of-interest at zoning and planning board meetings are being applied.

Does the fact that a board member works at a marina where a an applicant for a variance docks his boat mean the board member should recuse himself? How about when an applicant and a board member live on the same block?

James Brown, the Godfather of Soul and “hardest working man in show business,” has died at age 73.

He was hospitalized Sunday for pneumonia in Atlanta, where he died early Christmas morning, his agent said.

Brown was scheduled to appear at the Count Basie Theatre on Dec. 30. The theatre’s website notes Brown’s passing early “with a profound sense of sadness.” Brown had given a rousing show at the theatre’s 2005 Gala.

Look, you’ve been through this before. So you should know by now whether you’ve got the patience to set up the new computer, digital camera or i-Pod that you’ll be giving or receiving as a gift this month.

For those who don’t, or would simply prefer to sit back and enjoy themselves while someone who knows what he’s doing tackles the job of physical set-up and software installation, computer whiz Dylan Barlett is home for the holidays and ready to lend a hand for a modest fee.

“A gift should make you feel good, not be a source of frustration,” says Barlett, a 20-year-old Little Silver resident. “I want to leave everyone with a stable computer they can use and enjoy.”

The West Front Street borough library is now not expected to reopen until March because of asbestos removal and a utility’s delay in installation of new electrical service, library officials said.

“That (electrical work) has been done, but it took a while to get done,” said Jane Eigenrauch, adult services librarian. “The asbestos is in an old chimney area and has to be properly removed, and the schedule is to do it next Thursday or Friday.”

With a couple of critical days left in the holiday shopping season, it would appear that the consensus among downtown merchants is that this year’s cash-register activity, while not booming, is at acceptable levels.

redbankgreen hit the pavement late Wednesday afternoon for a completely unscientific sampling of viewpoints from behind the sales counters.

Today’s Asbury Park Press has a story about an effort to explain what appears to be soaring water usage at the Red Bank Middle School, which tripled in the July-October billing period, to 1,500 gallons per day.

So far, plumbers, public works officials and heating-and-cooling professionals have been stumped. The water meter is working properly, officials say, but there’s no sign of a leak or open tap.

Red Bank-based Hovnanian Enterprises was blindsided by the swift drop in values on its inventoried land, the company acknowledged yesterday in reporting a $115 million fourth-quarter loss.

“We did not anticipate the suddenness or magnitude of the fall in pricing that occurred this year in many of our communities,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “Our profitability, and the pace of new home sales, in our markets continues to be adversely impacted by high contract cancellation rates, increases in the number of resale listings, and increases in the number of new homes available for sale.”

The downturn occurred just as the company began moving into its gleaming new digs overlooking the Navesink River.

Yet the homebuilding giant forecast a profitable 2007. Chief Executive Ara Hovnanian said he’s “started to see a glimmer of hopeful indicators that the markets may be stabilizing,” according to MarketWatch.

But let’s not overlook the very solid, selfish reasons to jump into the Atlantic Ocean on the first day of the year, beginning with the fact that it’s a little insane. If you’re not willing to do something crazy/bold on a day that’s all about fresh starts, when will you, pilgrim? And what’s a better way to prove your commitment to change than to thrust oneself into churning, steel-cold saltwater?

Plus, the experience leaves you with a hard-to-top answer to the workplace question, ‘What did you do this weekend?’

After a continuous, 18-year slog of borough council meetings, planning board sessions and rubber-chicken dinners from here to Trenton, departing Mayor Ed McKenna is about to find some gaping holes in his schedule.

More fundamentally, at age 56, he may also find himself pondering the question, ‘What do I really want to do now?’

Sure, he can golf from LaJolla to Lahinch until he’s red in the face. But really, is that a meaningful way for a man at the peak of his strengths to spend his time?

Yes, he’s got a successful law practice, but he’s been grinding on that wheel, too, for many years. Besides, would the credit union industry really miss one drop-out attorney?

This is the era of self-reinvention, and the possibilities for a person of McKenna’s skills and experience are almost limitless. Radio call-in host. Lobbyist. No Joe’s barista.

There’s almost too much to choose from. But fortunately for McKenna, the readers of redbankgreen are standing by, ready to offer guidance on his next move.

Now winding down a 16-year stint as Mayor of Red Bank, Edward J. McKenna is scheduled to be feted by borough employees at a party scheduled for 5p Monday, Dec. 18, at the Two River Theater.

The event is open to the public. Tickets are $10 each. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Here’s something else to nosh on. redbankgreen sat down recently with McKenna in a conference room of his law firm, McKenna, DuPont, Higgins & Stone, for a look-back and look-forward interview. And he was as sentimental and pungent as ever.

Ten questions for John and Rachel Decker, owners of Graman’s Vacuum & Appliance Parts Co. on Monmouth Street, at the corner of West Street. They live in Tinton Falls.

How long have you owned this business, and who had it before you?
John: Weve been here for four years. I bought it from Gene GramanUncle Gene, though hes no blood relation whatsoever. When I was growing up in River Plaza, Gene was the older guy in the neighborhood who never got married and had all the toys and all the fun: boats, motorcycles, Jet skis, snowmobiles, wave runners. My parents knew him before I was even born.

His shop was in Red Bank for 47 years, and in this location since 1964. He was previously closer to Broad on Monmouth Street. And surprisingly, there was a parking problem then, too.

A lame-duck councilman in Matawan took the scorched-earth approach to saying goodbye last week, teeing up Mayor Mary Aufseeser as “repugnant,” badmouthing other members of the governing body and likening the town’s political atmosphere to “The Wizard of Oz,” complete with an unseen power broker behind a curtain.

But one person spared Neil Mendelsohn’s ire, according to a report in the Holmdel Independent, was Borough Attorney Pasquale Menna, the Mayor-elect of Red Bank.

From the story:

Pat Menna, you are wise. You are eloquent. You are so busy, Mendelsohn said, then asking Menna to please find time to help his town.

One of Red Bank’s architectural treasures fell to the sledgehammer this week when workmen demolished the intricate brick fence at the United Methodist Church on Broad Street.

The removal of the wall, apparently prompted by an accelerating state of decay, took longtime Red Bankers by surprise.

“I’m thoroughly disgusted,” said George Bowden, chairman of the Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission who had written to a church elder more than a year ago urging the church to preserve the wall, without receiving a formal reply. “It’s a tearing of the historic fabric of the town of Red Bank.”

Mayor Ed McKenna, whose law office is a few doors north of the church, said he was “shocked” to see that the wall had disappeared from one day to the next.

Church officials did not respond to requests for comment by redbankgreen, which happened upon the scene as the wall was being taken down Tuesday afternoon.

By late Wednesday, every scrap of brick and mortar had been removed, leaving only the poured concrete foundation several inches below the surface of the ground.